Standstill
by avenged
Summary: Love may be strong...but is pain stronger? Oneshot, SasuSaku.


**A/N: First fic…be gentle with me, please. )**

**Italicsthoughts, inner Sasuke, etc. etc.**

**Song is Death Cab for Cutie's "Someday You Will Be Loved".**

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Sasuke found Sakura perched on a rock near the edge of the woods, staring off at the night sky above her. The slight breeze played with her hair, tossing it like leaves twirling in the wind. He felt his face reddening.

_What the hell am I doing?_ he thought. _No need for me to go screwing up her life more than it already is. No need to make things any more complicated._

And he started back to the village. _I wasn't thinking when I came out here. Thank Kami I'm thinking now._

Suddenly, the soft sound of a girl's voice reached his ears. He stopped.

Sakura sat with her knees hugged to her chest. She looked up at the stars and sang in a voice so melancholy that it made Sasuke's heart ache.

_You'll be loved, you'll be loved_

_Like you never have known,_

_And the memories of me_

_Will seem more like bad dreams…_

He thought he heard her weeping, but he forced himself to remain cold. _No more pain. No more…_

_Just a series of blurs_

_Like I never occurred._

_Someday you will be loved._

Sasuke started as it hit him like an anvil. The music, so sweetly aching, was about him.

She thought…she thought he hated…

No.

_You said no more pain, Sasuke. Well, here it is. You can fix it. Do you want to?_

_Yes, I do. I want to so dearly that it's killing me._

_Then what are you waiting for?_

Sasuke took a deep breath and stuffed his hands deep in the pocket of his pants. He had had the strength to stand up to Orochimaru. He had the strength to do this.

He approached and sat beside her. She let out a small gasp of surprise.

"Sasuke?"

"I heard you singing," he told her, clasping his hands in his lap.

She hung her head. "I'm pathetic, I know."

"No," he said quickly, so quickly that she looked up at him questioningly. "It was beautiful." _As beautiful as you are,_ he thought.

She blushed. "Thank you."

"It made me think," he continued, laying back on his arms. "I wondered who you were singing about."

"No one," Sakura mumbled, shifting her eyes away from his face. "It's just a song."

"But it's not. At least not for you," Sasuke countered. He sighed.

_Be bold, Sasuke. Be bold._

"Would you…would you lie back with me, Sakura?"

He saw a tremor rush through her. She laid down apprehensively, careful to keep her body a good distance from his.

A shooting star whizzed across the sky. Sasuke smiled.

"Make a wish."

"I already did," Sakura replied. "I do every time I see one. It's usually the same. Some variations."

"Has it ever come true?"

She shook her head sadly.

Sasuke gulped. He wanted so badly to run his hand along the arch of her back, to tease her hair as the wind had done, to feel her lips against his…

But he couldn't. Sasuke Uchiha, prodigy of his clan and pride of Konoha, for once wasn't strong enough.

_Are you afraid, Sasuke?_ he asked himself. _Are you afraid that by openly loving her you will expose her to the hurt in your life as well?_

_Yes, I am. I am terrified. I have never been terrified before. Yet…_

_Yet what? _his rationale continued.

_Yet two are stronger than one._

_Yes._

_I am strong. And so is she. Together, we can forge a bond so thick, so powerful, that nothing can break it._

_Whatever happens, we will face it together._

"Sakura."

She turned to him, the silent spell broken. There was curiosity in her eyes, and pain…so much pain…

_I will heal that pain._

"Do you think it would ruin the chances of it happening if I guessed your wish?"

"No," she said. "It's already impossible. Nothing you do will change that."

"Really?" he asked playfully.

"Really."

"Are you positive?"

"I am."

"Well," he began, letting a smile escape onto his lips as bravery overwhelmed him, "let me change your mind."

And his arms, which had taken on a life of their own, wrapped themselves around her. He hardly noticed her moan as he drew her close to him, so close that their foreheads were almost touching. He rubbed his hand along the back of her neck and tangled his fingers in her hair. He felt her tremble.

"Did I guess right?" he whispered.

"Sasuke-kun…" she breathed, looking up at him.

"Shh," he said, placing a finger across her open mouth. "Let me make you happy."

And he replaced the finger with his lips, kissing her with such passion as he had never felt before. In that kiss were all the emotions he had kept bottled up inside himself in the years past. He rolled over on top of her, moving his lips up to her eyelids and then down again. She kissed him back feverishly and rapidly, almost as if she feared this was a dream and would end all too soon.

_It may have been a dream, Sakura, but it's not anymore. I've woken up._

He placed a last kiss on her neck and looked into her sparkling emerald eyes. "Tell me honestly: did you think you never mattered to me? Did you think that I would pass you by and that you would become nothing more than a series of blurs in my past?"

Dazed, she nodded. "I did," she said softly.

He kissed her gently. "Then I apologize for having caused you that pain."

He looked down at her with a loving smile and was surprised to see tears rolling down her cheeks. He brushed them away and hugged her to him.

"Do you think it would ruin the chances of it happening if I guessed one of the variations of your wish?"

She smiled so sweetly that he melted. "Not anymore."

"Good," he said, and letting go of her, he removed his shirt. She gasped.

"Right again?" he asked rhetorically, repositioning himself on top of her. "I'm pretty damn good, aren't I?"

Her laugh, he thought, was the most beautiful music in the world. "You're better than good. You're wonderful." Her delicate fingers danced across his bare torso, tracing the lines of his chest. Now it was his turn to moan. Never had he felt such pleasure.

He leaned in for another kiss. She gave it willingly. Their bodies pulsed back and forth in a steady rhythm with the stars. Her hands stroked his bare back as his hair tickled her forehead, his lips exploring hers.

Finally, the two of them broke apart. Sasuke rolled to the side, one arm still tightly around her, her head nestled on his shoulder perfectly.

"Sakura," he whispered, "I love you."

"And I love you," she replied, "more than you could ever know."

"I wouldn't say that," he said teasingly, kissing her cheek.

"And why not?"

"Because I love you just as much."

"Not more?"

He grinned. "Maybe."

And their shrieks of laughter echoed across the field as Sasuke raced back to the village, Sakura in hot pursuit of the man that, after years of fighting his emotions, had finally held the girl he loved in his arms.

_You'll be loved…_

_like you never have known._


End file.
